La Plata, MD – Donta Montrail Strong, 21 of Hughesville, probably didn’t make the best choices, Charles County Circuit Court Judge Helen I. Harrington said before sentencing him to 18 months for second-degree assault on a police officer and manufacturing marijuana. The sentence was handed down Monday, Nov. 2.
According to Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney Jeremy Widder, Strong was a passenger in a car being driven by co-defendant Joseph Robert Keys Jr. March 20, 2013 when the car was pulled over near St. Thomas Drive in Waldorf by a Charles County Sheriff’s Office deputy.
The officer had Strong wind down his window and while talking to the two men observed a vial of pills in Strong’s shirt pocket.
“The officer reaches his hand inside to get the cylinder when Strong grabs the officer and tells the driver to go,” Widder stated. “Keys began accelerating the vehicle with the officer’s arm still inside.”
Widder said the officer was pulled a few feet before he grabbed his arm back.
“He calls for backup and chases the vehicle,” the prosecutor noted. “At Leonardtown Road the car crashes into the median and into a ditch. Keys and Strong attempted to run. Both were arrested on the scene. They had to be tased by officers.”
Both men were transported to University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center after being tased, and then transferred to the detention center, he added. Widder said Strong told the officers the pills were pain pills.
“The officer had to go to physical therapy in order to go back to work,” Widder added.
Strong recently picked up additional charges Sept. 6 when officers responded to his residence in La Plata where they were able to see “in plain view,” four marijuana plants.
Police executed a search warrant on the residence of the defendant’s mother and found a potato chip can in a closet with eight plastic bags of marijuana. Strong admitted to the officers that the plants belonged to him.
“He said, ‘It’s all mine, just let my mother be,’ ” Widder said.
Strong was also cited for fleeing and eluding Oct. 7 after police received a call of a yellow dirt bike traveling erratically up and down Patuxent Court.
“The officer sees the defendant on a yellow Suzuki dirt bike,” Widder noted. “The officer told him to get off the bike and he refused, then took off.”
The defendant was taken into custody when the bike developed engine problems and stalled out.
The prosecutor noted Strong had 59 days of credit, having been held without bond since the Oct. 7 incident.
When Harrington asked the defendant what his reason was for “getting involved in all of this?” Strong responded, “I made some bad decisions.”
He told the judge the pills were just Ibuprofin.
“I had a hole in my tooth,” Strong told the judge.
“The decisions you are making are getting you into a world of trouble,” Harrington responded. “I don’t know what it is. Wrong place, wrong time doesn’t cover growing marijuana,” she added. “On the dirt bike, you took off when the cop was trying to stop you. You’ve made a series of bad decisions. You’re doing it to yourself, sir. You need to have a long look at your life.”
On the assault charge, Harrington sentenced Strong to 10 years. She tacked on another five-year sentence for the growing and manufacturing of marijuana and added another year on the fleeing and eluding charge, but suspended all but 18 months, giving him credit for the 59 days he has already served.
She added five years of supervised probation upon his release and ordered him to undergo jail-based drug treatment while incarcerated.
“I hope this is his wake-up call,” Widder said.
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com